Hadassah Resolution Criticizes U.S. Navy for Aiding Arab Boycott

A resolution sharply criticizing the United States Government for succumbing to the Arab boycott of Israel by barring owners of any U.S. ships, engaged in business with Israel, from bidding for naval contracts, was adopted here today by more than 200 top leaders of Hadassah at the closing session of the organization’s Mid-Winter Conference.

The resolution called upon “American business to resist the illegal Arab boycott of Israel with every legal means at its command.” The resolution also called upon the United States Government “categorically to oppose the injection of racial or religious discrimination against American citizens in the administration of any treaties or executive agreements to which the United States Government or any of its agencies affixes its signature.”

The resolution charged that “despite the inclusion of the Morse-Javits Amendment in the Mutual Security Act–to safeguard against the injection of religious discrimination into the Armed Forces of the United States American business and American employment practices, by foreign governments with the United States–the United States Navy, in complete disregard of this amendment, has succumbed to the Arab boycott of Israel by barring owners of any U.S. ships, engaged in business with Israel, from bidding for naval contracts.”

In the resolution, Hadassah further declared: “Believing that the Arab League boycott of Israel has brought about violations of the rights of American citizenship and interference with the freedom to trade, invest and travel, Hadassah views this boycott as international intimidation and calls upon the American public vigorously to protest any yielding on the part of the United States Government, or any of its agencies, to such tactics.”

SCORES AMERICAN SUPPORT OF LOAN TO NASSER DESPITE SUEZ BLOCKADE

In another action, the Hadassah leaders–representing the organization’s more than 318,000 members throughout the United States and Puerto Rico–scored American support of the recent World Bank loan to the United Arab Republic and appealed to Congress to demand “as a condition of further loans or aids to the United Arab Republic, free access to the ships of all nations–including Israel–through the Suez Canal.”

Copies of this resolution are being sent to Secretary of State Christian Herter and to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees. Hadassah expressed the conviction that “the extension of aid to a Government which has flagrantly violated international commitments, represents a policy of appeasement offensive to the moral sensibilities of the American people.” Such a policy, the resolution continued, is “inconsistent with the aims and objectives of the American foreign aid program and with the declaration of the President of the United States (Feb. 20, 1957) concerning the free passage of ships through the Suez Canal.”

Mrs. Nathan D. Perlman, chairman of the Hadassah Medical Organization Committee in this country, told the conference that research and scholarship grants from American institutions and foundations to Hadassah and the Hadassah University Medical School last year totaled $329,000. Of this sum, she said, $233,215 was awarded by the National Institutes of Health.

Mrs. Samuel W. Halprin, former national president of Hadassah and presently acting chairman of the American Section of the Jewish Agency for Israel, reported that two out of every three newcomers who arrived in Israel since the establishment of the state have been fully resettled, most of them with Jewish Agency assistance, The population of “the primitive, inadequate transition centers” has declined from all all-time high of 250,000 inhabitants in 1952 to a present total of some 60,000 persons, she said.

“The agricultural villages which we, the Jewish Agency, established within the past eleven years already account for over one-third of all agricultural produce grown in Israel today,” Mrs. Halprin reported. “I am certain that with the continued generous support of the American Jewish community, we will be able this year to meet a substantial part of our long-deferred obligations toward those immigrants whose rehabilitation has not yet been completed.”

Mrs. Benjamin Gottesman, treasurer of Hadassah., reported that the D.S. and R.H. Gottesman Foundation had contributed $250,000 in memory of D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman toward the $25,000,000 Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center nearing completion in Jerusalem.